What are the economic and social impact of illegal immigration? Research Proposal regarding, “What are the economic and social impact of illegal immigration?”
Literature review:
Max of 1500 words, a critical summary of existing research my project will build upon. Will need to evaluate at least 5 other relevant research projects from original sources in reputable, peer-reviewed journals.
Problem statement:
Max of 1500 words, an overview of the topic of my research will investigate.
Design and procedures:
Max 2000 words, describes and justifies my plans for measurement, sampling, design, analysis, and interpretation of results
Ethics & conduct of research:
Max 1500 words, summarizes potential ethical dilemmas, political consequences, and practical challenges associated with designing, conducting, implementing, and disseminating my research
Immigration can give substantial economic benefits – a more flexible labour market, greater skills base, increased demand and a greater diversity of innovation. However, immigration is also controversial. It is argued immigration can cause issues of overcrowding, congestion, and extra pressure on public services. There is also a debate about whether immigration of unskilled workers leads to downward pressure on wages and even unemployment of native workers. This is a look at mostly the economic costs and benefits of immigration.
1. Increased economic output and living standards. Net immigration will lead to a growth in the size of the labour force and an increase in the productive capacity of the economy. Immigration leads to higher economic growth with a corresponding rise in tax revenues and potential for government spending.
2. Potential entrepreneurs. It is argued that immigrants often arrive with little wealth so have a greater incentive to try and make something for themselves. Also, people who are willing to leave a country and try in a foreign company are the most ambitious and willing to take risks and a result tend to be the more dynamic part of the workforce. Immigrants who are young and mobile are also quite likely to be entrepreneurs – set up businesses which create innovative products.
The American economy is an example of how immigrants have moved to America and set up classic American companies – leading to higher living standards and a greater choice of goods and services. For example, (Apple) Steve Job’s father – Abdul Fattah Jandali was from Syria. Alexander Graham Bell (telephone AT&T) from Scotland. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) son of a Cuban immigrant. Sergey Brin (Google) is a Russian immigrant.
3. Increased demand and growth. A fear of immigration is that ‘Immigrants take jobs from native-born population’ However, this is known as the lump of labour fallacy. The belief that the number of jobs remains fixed. However, this is not the case, if immigrants move to the US or UK and gain employment, then they will spend their wages in their new country, creating new demand in the service and goods sector.
Far from ‘taking jobs’ immigrants contribute to a growth in GDP. Between 1900 and 1915, 15 million immigrants arrived in the US (1), but this was a period of low unemployment and high economic growth. Immigration was a major factor in the rapid rate of growth (In US between 1890 to 1910 – economic growth was over 4%.)
4. Better skilled workforce. In the UK, immigrants working in the economy are more likely to have more educational and skilled qualifications. For example, just 20% of UK citizens finished education at 21 or later. But 53% of new immigrants were educated until 21 or later. (LSE study 2012) Immigration allows an economy to attract high skilled professionals to fill in job vacancies and contribute to higher tax revenues.
5. Net benefit to government revenues. Because immigrants are more likely to be young and working than native-born citizens, they provide a net benefit to government revenues. Working people pay income tax, but don’t receive benefits, such as education, pensions. Young people are less likely to use health care services than old people.
For example, the UK government HMRC show that in 2015/16, EEA nationals paid £15.5bn more in income tax and national insurance than they took out in tax credits and child benefit (HMRC, 2018). A study by Oxford Economics (2018) shows that recent migrants from EEA had the biggest fiscal benefit (+£4.7bn), non-EEA migrants a small cost (£ -9.0), and UK born citizens the biggest net tax burden (-£41.0bn).
6. Deal with an ageing population. Many economies in the west are facing a demographic crunch with a low birth rate and ageing population causing a rise in the dependency ratio (ratio of old to young workers). This puts pressure on social care, tax revenues and government spending. Immigration is the most effective policy to deal with an ageing population, as it allows shortages in health care and social care to be filled with young workers who make a net contribution to government finances and boost the workforce.
7. More flexible labour market. Immigrants are highly mobile. They move to economies when wages are high and demand for labour strong. This helps to prevent a booming economy from overheating by providing labour to meet the growing demand. However, less obvious is the fact, that if the economy enters a downturn, migration flows often reverse, meaning they don’t stay to try and get unemployment benefits but return home.
A good example is Ireland. In the boom years, pre-2007, the economy attracted many construction workers from the EU. When the property market collapsed many construction workers went home – limiting the rise in Irish unemployment. Immigration helped the labour market be more flexible.
8. Solves a skills shortage. If an economy has a shortage of skilled workers such as nurses and doctors, it would take several years to train new workers. But, the health service cannot afford this wait. Immigration enables the shortage to be filled immediately.
9. Filling undesirable job vacancies. Some types of jobs are often difficult to fill by native-born workers due to low wages and/or the prestige attached to that kind of work. For example, farmers often rely on immigrant workers to pick crops. A decline in immigration to the UK in 2019, led to farmers claiming they were unable to pick the harvest because they couldn’t get the seasonal labour. Immigration provides a benefit to businesses and employers who rely on flexible labour to fill job vacancies. Also, if low-skilled jobs are filled by migrants, it enables native-born workers to gain better-skilled work elsewhere.
10. Multi-cultural society. Away from economics, some feel that immigration leads to greater cultural diversity, which gives a country a more diverse and inclusive feel. All countries with immigration have absorbed some aspect of foreign culture into their country – be it cuisine, music, literature or political influences.